What is Bell's Royal Game of Ur?
Bell's rules are an older reconstruction of the Royal Game of Ur, made long before the Babylonian rules tablet was read. The board, the route and the pieces are the same as in the standard game, but the dice, the rosettes and the rhythm of a turn are different.
You throw three binary dice, each with two of its four tips marked, and count the marked tips that point up. None marked moves 4, one marked moves nothing and ends your turn, two marked move 1 and three marked move 5. Every throw that moves earns another throw, so a turn can run on for several moves until you throw a single marked tip.
A piece enters the board only on a throw of 5, which carries it five squares along the route, and a captured piece needs another 5 to come back. Rosettes are not lucky here: a piece that lands on one pays a fine into the pool, earns no extra throw and can be captured there. Pieces bear off with an exact throw, and the first player to bear off every piece wins the game and the pool. The table counts the fines each player has paid.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Royal Game of Ur | Bell's Royal Game of Ur |
|---|---|---|
| Dice | Standard Royal Game of UrFour binary dice; the throw is the number of marked tips up, 0 to 4. | Bell's Royal Game of UrThree binary dice. None marked up moves 4, one moves 0, two move 1 and three move 5. |
| Extra throws | Standard Royal Game of UrLanding on a rosette earns another throw. | Bell's Royal Game of UrEvery throw that moves, 4, 1 or 5, earns another throw. A throw of 0 ends the turn. |
| Entering a piece | Standard Royal Game of UrAny throw can bring a piece onto the board, on the square of that number. | Bell's Royal Game of UrOnly a throw of 5, which takes the piece to the fifth square of the route, the start of the middle row. |
| Rosettes | Standard Royal Game of UrLanding on one earns another throw, and a piece on a rosette cannot be captured. | Bell's Royal Game of UrLanding on one costs a fine into the pool. Rosettes give no extra throw and no protection. |
| Captures | Standard Royal Game of UrLanding on an opponent's piece sends it back off the board, except on the middle rosette. | Bell's Royal Game of UrThe same on every shared square, rosettes included. The captured piece needs a 5 to re-enter. |
| How to win | Standard Royal Game of UrBe the first to bear off all your pieces with an exact throw. | Bell's Royal Game of UrThe same, and the winner also takes the pool of fines. |
| Route and pieces | Standard Royal Game of UrThe 14-square route, with seven pieces; the Masters route and five pieces are options. | Bell's Royal Game of UrBell's own route, the same 14 squares, with five or seven pieces. The Masters route is not used. |
History
R. C. Bell published complete rules for the Royal Game of Ur in Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations, first published in 1960. His game uses three binary dice, like the tetrahedral dice found with the boards at Ur, which have two of their four corners marked, and it is played for stakes, with the rosettes as squares to avoid.
Bell's rules include a throw table, entry on a 5 and a fine paid into a central pool for landing on a rosette. The route Bell proposed, up your own side, along the middle row and back into your own side of the small block, is also the one Irving Finkel favours, and it is the route of the standard game played here.
The standard rules here are Finkel's, based on the cuneiform tablet BM 33333B, which the Babylonian scribe Itti-Marduk-balāṭu wrote in 177–176 BC. Finkel studied the tablet from the 1980s on and published a full study of it in 2007. Bell's rules predate that work and were worked out without it.